Earlier, Mattis told lawmakers that he would present Trump with a new U.S. military strategy for Afghanistan by mid-July.

The official said the final decision to give Mattis the power to adjust troop levels actually came during his testimony, at which he said America still is "not winning" in Afghanistan.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. David Barno, who led the USA war effort in Afghanistan for 19 months beginning in fall 2003, said that he is not sure that the potential troop surge "is as big of a deal as it is being made out to be", and that it is unlikely that Mattis will be able to deploy an unlimited number of troops without any supervision by the White House.

He said the administration is working on a broad Afghanistan strategy, and that he intends to set U.S. troop levels consistent with Trump's "strategic direction and his foreign policy". President Trump still has not been presented with an Afghanistan strategy.

USA media have reported that the Defense Secretary will recommend sending another 3,000-5,000 US troops to break what he has called a "stalemate" between US -backed government forces and the Taliban.

"I've been given some carte blanche to - to draw up a strategy or a number that's out of step with the strategy", Mattis said.

Currently, there are about 8,400 USA troops and another 5,000 forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on the ground in Afghanistan to train and assist the Afghan forces against the Taliban, and conduct counter-terrorism missions.

Oil slips as data points to fast-growing supplyBut those efforts have been blunted by a massive boom in production by US shale operators, who have become much more efficient. Benchmark Brent crude settled 43 cents higher at $48.72 a barrel while US light crude settled up 38 cents to $46.46 a barrel.

"At one point, when we reduced our forces there, I believe in what was probably in hindsight a misguided application of our forces, we restricted them from using our air support, with some idea we would wean them off the need for it", Mattis said.

Prior to the White House decision, Mattis had warned that the Taliban was surging - having claimed a series of deadly attacks, including against Afghan military bases and positions - and that America still was "not winning" in the country almost 16 years after the US-led invasion there.

USA generals have recently recommended adding as many as 5,000 troops.

That decision, however, had been stalled by a broader review by the Trump administration of Afghan policy and a push for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to contribute more troops.

Mattis later described winning in Afghanistan as forming a central government that, with global help, "will be able to handle the violence". Additional conversations must be had if the Pentagon decides it needs a few thousand more additional troops in coming years, he said.

"Does Mattis do something different, or fall into the trap of the last eight years of doing the same thing but doing it better?"

The new troops, if deployed, would "provide more fire and air support to the Afghans. We will correct this as soon as possible", he said.

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And within months they indicted Carter , saying they had discovered numerous text messages from her urging Roy to kill himself. The prosecution says Ms Carter helped Roy devise the plan to take his own life, encouraged him to hide it from his parents.

Though initial reports said two service members had been killed , USA officials later upped the number of fatalities to three. Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, wrote in a WhatsApp message that the attacker was a Taliban infiltrator.

Speaking at the WWDC conference, Apple's marketing SVP Phil Schiller boldly said, "This is a chance to reinvent music ". The Apple HomePod has an A8 chip along with a unique woof specially designed by the company.

We've all been there; you download an app, use it regularly, and find yourself frequently prompted to write an App Store review. The new app review guidelines stipulate that developers may no longer create their own pop-ups to ask for a rating.

Iman Shumpert and Zaza Pachulia went to the floor in a scrum and Pachulia appeared to hit the wingman in the groin. He had been on better behavior in these playoffs, actually trailing LeBron in the leg-kick category in Game 3.

Labor Department said Wednesday that the consumer price index edged down 0.1% last month following a small 0.2% increase in April. Receipts at restaurants and bars dipped 0.1 per cent, while sales at sporting goods and hobby stores fell 0.6 per cent.

By far, the most closely watched races will be between the five candidates running to be Virginia's next governor. Associated Press reporters Ben Finley in Norfolk and Alanna Durkin Richer in Richmond contributed to this report.

The playmaker was rumoured to be unhappy at Real after initially struggling for game time in the first half of the season. Ronaldo was delighted to see his son's unbelievable football skills after a huge victory in the Champions League finals.

Harry Kane has set his sights on becoming the permanent England captain after his heroics against Scotland . If you manage to score in stoppage time to take something from it, you go away from any game fairly happy.

Many Labour and Lib Dem voters will be frustrated that they're less socially liberal than the Conservative Party. The misjudgment by the Conservative Party, moreover, is the second one in just two years.

Nayar said that the current circumstances and the way media organisations were being attacked reminded him of the "Emergency". News outlets that run afoul of the government can lose access to officials. "You should excavate that".

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